Posts Tagged ‘Resident Evil’

On Setp. 29 Capcom presented an event called Wesker & Son Resident Evil Human Butchery to promote the Oct. 2 release of the game Resident Evil 6. The pop-up art installation was held in the renowned Smithfield Meat Market in East London.

Wesker & Sons featured actual meat being shaped into human body parts. Available for purchase, these consisted of such items as peppered human & lemon sausages, J’avo caught human thigh steaks and pots made of red and green herbs.

At the heart of the concept it broadly has all of the elements of a good PR/marketing stunt. It’s trendy. It has a vague, albeit strained reference to the product and it definitely got attention. All proceeds of the grotesque meat sale were reported to be donated to the Limbless Association, a charity for those who have lost limbs.

Whatever the truth behind the circumstance the idea certainly worked. They got loads of attention and plenty of free press, which in this is kind of the point. But it is never a good idea to adopt the tenant that any press is good press.

I think what offends me the most is the travesty they committed to the prosciutto (bacon’s forgotten cousin) by transforming it into the shape of a human arm. Just to be clear, Capcom defiled bacon (to an extent) to look like man-meat, sold it for human consumption and gave the proceeds to a charity for people who had lost their arms.

It just reminds me of a quote from Serenity, “Eatin’people…Where’s that get fun?”

Before the Capcom bashing commences for their tasteless (pun intended) PR stunt, they have some of the best video game IPs in the business. Street Fighter, Megaman & Resident Evil are forever classics. But some of their recent business practices haven’t been fan favorites. Capcom released slightly different versions of the same game within a few months: Street Fighter IV/Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition and Marvel vs. Capcom3/ Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. There was also the paid on-disc DLC for Street Fighter x Tekken and Ashura Wrath that saw a backlash from customers and video game journalist.

These are poor marketing decisions that Capcom has learned from. Reportedly the on-disc DLC on Resident Evil 6 will be free. But I am still not sure that this promotion for the game was fully though through.

Using cannibalism to promote Resident Evil 6, a game about a zombie outbreak seems unfeeling and more like a move that a faceless uncaring corporation would make – like Umbrella Corp.